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The lone Toa stumbled across the landscape. The barren desolate landscape that had been his home for the past three or so months. With the others. Until it had come. And now he was all alone here. All alone.

The whispers. They came ever so often. They intruded into his mind. They weren't sounds. They were in his head. He wasn't going insane, was he? No, he couldn't be. He was perfectly sane. He was fine.

How had he got here? They were going to the city of legends. Metru Nui. And they had washed up here. They couldn't figure it out. They should have gone to Metru Nui. They had followed the directions exactly.

Another whisper. This one was more primal. More ancient. And it...

The Toa burst into a run. He had to escape from it. He had to get out. Quickly. This was life or death. He had to get out. Before it came and got him like it had for the rest of his team. It was coming. It was coming for him.

The whispers. They were real. They weren't just his thoughts. He could see it now. They were other's whispers. He wasn't insane! He was just telepathic! The Toa stopped and laughed. He was so relieved.

And then he heard a noise. He turned around to see it. Behind him. It had heard the laugh. And it was closer than ever. The Toa made a mad dash for his life, glancing over his shoulder every so often.

It was gaining on him.

Then he heard a sound. It was like water falling gently. He ran towards it. It was one of the dustfalls that littered the landscape. The Toa stumbled towards it, and then it came out of the bush. The Toa turned, and his eyes widened with fear.

The crab thing that he was running from jabbed him in the stomach with one of it's nasty appendages. It began to jab him in the same spot. He crippled over. It jabbed him again and again. Then it left him in the dust. The place it had jabbed him hurt. His hand dropped down and started to feel around.

He looked at his hand. It was covered in blood. Where had it come from? He looked down and saw the wound was bleeding. He fell down on the ground.

It had killed him like it had killed his companions here. One by one, they had fallen to this beast, and he was the only one left. He was dead. Killed by that thing.

But no! He was still alive! He could still move. He could still run. He still had a chance of honoring his teammates and escaping from this awful place.

He slowly got up and started to walk around. He couldn't hear the things thoughts. He was safe. He moved forward and stumbled around. Then, he saw a stone gateway, and through it, a tunnel. He ran towards it, his wound hurting him.

The tunnel was pitch black. He couldn't hear his footsteps. But it didn't matter. His eyes were shut. He ran forward, happy as could be. And then he made it out of the tunnel. He ran for a bit, and turned around.

He was out. He remembered how he had found his way here. His team and him had entered the realm and gone around in it. It was a weird place. Volcanoes of burning ice and waterfalls of dust. Stone replicas of Matoran.

They had made a camp, and went around exploring the land. They hid from the Matoran being treated like slaves. They didn’t want to be force into slavery as well. But then nearly a year after they had arrived, it had come. The crab-like monstrosity. It killed one of his team, and they knew it would come for them.

So they ran. But one by one, it caught up to them. Until he was the last one left.

The lone Toa began to cry for his teammates. His friends. He had lost them to whatever that thing was. But he was also joyful. He had escaped from that thing. That place. He looked up and smiled.

And then he dropped dead. A Suletu hit the ground, and the Toa lay there, unmoving, waiting to be found by six Matoran and a Toa.

________________

This story was based on how Takanuva and the future Inika found a Suletu on the body of a dead Toa on the way to Karzanhi. This is the story of the Toa's death.

Wow. Creepy, dreamlike, a little pensive, a little sad, and actually in a strange, dark way, rather beautiful. Great inspiration, too. I really enjoyed this piece.

Definitely one of its outstanding qualities is the style. You used almost nothing but short, snappy sentences, which made the story flow faster and contributed to the ethereal, dreamlike feel. My only complaint there is that it started to be too much; short sentences are powerful, but in excess they begin to lose that power. That said, there's no denying that there were moments when you used them to great effect. For instance:

It was gaining on him.

And then he dropped dead.

These were powerful sentences, and they stood out because of the way they were placed: in a paragraph by itself, and at the beginning of the last paragraph, right before a longer sentence. The juxtaposition in the end there was just beautiful. And that's something else I would like to point out, that when you're using so many short sentences, the long ones begin to stand out, too, and that can be effective as well. I think these two sentences were the longest in the whole story:

The crab thing that he was running from jabbed him in the stomach with one of it's nasty appendages.

A Suletu hit the ground, and the Toa lay there, unmoving, waiting to be found by six Matoran and a Toa.

The latter is the last sentence, and like I said, very well done with the contrast there. The former came at a perfect time, too, rushing in just as the action was coming to a head. I actually would have liked to have seen you take advantage of that juxtaposition a little more; it would have helped to balance things out more, too. But on the whole this was very well done. You experimented with a style and used it very effectively, and I commend that.

As far as plot, like I said, I really liked where you drew your inspiration from. Those little gaps in the main storyline, where there are questions unanswered and little details left unknown, can be the best places to get ideas and to have some fun coming up with a story to fit into the hole. You did a great job of that. I did think the backstory was a little hard to follow, partially because of the dreamlike quality of the story which makes that sort of detail a little harder to swallow, but mainly I think because I'm so out of the BIONICLE universe these days and it took me time to realize this was Karzahni.

Also, though it seems a little unnecessary when your story is already deformed by whatever recent coding hiccup, I only noticed two typos and when the number's that small, I figure I might as well point them out:

He couldn't hear the things [should be possessive, not plural] thoughts.

They didn’t want to be force[d] into slavery as well.

Otherwise, excellent work. Keep it up!

Sincerely, Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith

Edited by Nuile the Paracosmic Tulpa, Mar 09 2014 - 07:15 PM.

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When I know I can't live without a pen and paper, when I know writing is as necessary to me as breathing . . .